Vinesh Phogat goal of winning an Olympic medal was fuelled not just by a desire for personal glory but by her fight for a larger cause. The wrestler spent a good part of the last one year spearheading a protest against alleged sexual harassment of women wrestlers by the Wrestlers’ Federation of India (WFI) former President Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh. Yesterday, she made history by qualifying for the Olympic finals.
A story of redemption
This victory could not be sweeter for the 29-year-old from Haryana, who had entered the Olympics with the aim of winning a medal and showing it to Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh.
Speaking to ESPN in November 2023, Vinesh Phogat had said: “The only thing I have told Bajrang and Sakshi is that I will still fight. I will look him [Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh] in the eye and medal leke aungi main, tu dekh [bring back a medal and show it to him]. They both have Olympic medals, I don’t. I have a reason to fight. If I train well, I can win a medal. No one can stop me.
Fellow wrestler Bajrang Punia told ESPN what Phogat had said to him. “She told me “I am fighting for the future generation of wrestlers. Not for myself, my career is done and this is my last Olympics. I want to fight for the young women wrestlers who will come and fight for them so that they can wrestle safely. That’s why I was in Jantar Mantar, and that’s why I am here,” he said on Tuesday.
Phogat’s historic semi-final win at the Paris Olympics comes after she, Sakshi Malik and other athletes staged a long sit-in protest in Delhi early last year against the alleged sexual harassment of women wrestlers by BJP’s Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh. They were vilified by certain sections of the internet for the protest, detained by the police and even travelled to Haridwar to throw their medals into the Ganges, but were stopped by farmers’ leader Naresh Tikait at the last moment.
